Day 3: California Holds Lead, Stanford swims back

FEDERAL WAY, WASH. – At night’s end the scales tipped in CALIFORNIA’s favor, but day three of the Pac-12 Women’s Swimming and Men’s and Women’s Diving Championship at Weyerhaeuser King Country Aquatic Center brought a host of competitive events. USC and Stanford took their first trips to the winners podium after the Trojans’ Kendyl Stewart won the 100 fly and Cardinal swimmer Sarah Haase took the 100 breast. Golden Bears’ swimmers Celina Li and Rachel Boostma placed first in the 400 IM and the 100 Back respectively. From the diving well, Stanford’s Kristian Ipsen took first in the 3-meter and Arizona’s Samantha Pickens took first place in the women’s 1-meter.

The night began with a splash in the women’s 1-meter dive. Arizona’s Samantha Pickens finished first, putting up an impressive 351.55. Stanford’s Kassidy Cook followed in second (347.55), with ASU’s Hailey Casper taking third (336.05).

The swimming finals got underway with California’s senior Celina Li winning the time in the 400-yard individual medley with a time of 4:06.09. Li’s California teammate Kelly Naze took second with a 4:08.38, and Stanford’s Tara Halsted finished third with a 4:12.75.

USC took its first win of the Championship when Kendyl Stewart flew into first in the 100-yard butterfly with a time of 51.10 closely followed by Cal’s Farida Osman, who finished just four hundreths of a second later at 51.14. Golden Bear and former Olympic medalist Rachel Boostma took third with a 51.79.

Record breakers collided in the 200 free, when Stanford freshman Simone Manuel, who broke Stanford’s school record in the 200 free this year faced off with Olympic gold medalist Missy Franklin. Franklin took first, setting a Pac-12 record with a 1:41.09, while Manuel hit the wall six hundreths of a second later at 1:41.15. USC’s Chelsea Chenault followed in third with a 1:43.17

Before the men jumped from the 3-meter board, Cal’s Rachel Boostma returned to the pool and won the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 50.84. Stanford’s Ally Howe took second with a 51.72 and California’s Melanie Klaren took third with a 51.90.

Kristian Ipsen took his second title in as many days, scoring a Pac-12 record 520.40 and winning the 3-meter after scoring a perfect 10 on his final dive. Ipsen had already broken his previous Pac-12 record in preliminaries and broke that record again in the final to collect another diving title for Stanford. Bradley Christensen finished in second (457.15) and Rafael Quintero finished in third with a 447.05.

The 400-yard medley relay served as the night-capper and proved to be a battle between the Championship’s first and second-place teams California and Stanford. Every leg of the race was tight between the Cardinal and Bears, but it was Stanford who nabbed the final event to edge out the Golden Bears and make up ground in the overall team scores. The Cardinal, made up of Ally Howe, Sarah Haase, Janet Hu, and Simone Manuel finished with a time of 3:29.56. California’s relay squad of Boostma, Garcia, Osman and Franklin earned a 3:30.21 while USC’s relay team (Weiss, Kropp, Stewart and Wilk) took third with a 3:33.74.

Following the events the team scores are as follows: California (1088.5), Stanford (954), USC (723), Arizona (642.5), UCLA (610.5), ARIZONA STATE (448), UTAH (421), WASHINGTON STATE (234.5) and OREGON STATE (213).

The fourth and final day kicks off at 11 a.m. P.T. with preliminaries and finals for the 1650-yard freestyle, 200-yard backstroke, 200-yard breaststroke, 100-yard freestyle, 200-yard butterfly in addition to the prelims and semifinals for the men’s and women’s platform drives. Wrapping up the 2014 championships is the 400-free relay, after which the Pac-12 Champion will be crowned.